According to the report from Variety, the one project that Bale was formerly attached to, but is no longer involved with, is The Last Photograph. It’s possible though that Sean Penn is still connected to that war drama, which looks to be Zack Snyder’s followup to his Superman reboot, Man of Steel.

Here, in no particular order, are the films that Bale is said to be circling right now:

Michael Mann’s Gold, a thriller being scripted by Oscar-winner Paul Haggis (Crash) that’s been likened to a contemporary version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Scott Cooper’s Out of the Furnace, an adaptation of the story “The Low Dweller”, about an ex-con who sets out to avenge his brother’s death, once he is released from prison.

Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg in ‘The Fighter’

Bale will be all the hotter a commodity, following the (pun intended) one-two punch of his Academy Award-winning turn in The Fighter and his supposedly final onscreen performance as Batman in Dark Knight Rises. He’s always been highly selective about what films he appears in and rarely signs on to work with any project that doesn’t either sound great on paper and/or feature an excellent director already onboard (with arguably Terminator: Salvation and Reign of Fire being the obvious exceptions). So the idea of Bale collaborating with people like Eastwood or Aronofsky makes sense.

All of the aforementioned projects would see Bale tackling dark and gritty roles. Again, that’s in keeping with most of his previous films, but kind of disappointing for those hoping to see the actor try something a little different – something more like his darkly comical character in The Fighter, or his wonderfully absurd turn as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.

That said – having Bale onboard for your movie almost never hurts, so whatever film he does sign on for next, it’ll be good news. Heck, if he signs on as the villain in Lee’s Oldboy, people might actually start looking forward to it!